Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Locums coverage

Hi,

I am wondering what you guys do if you have Locums coverage if you take off for vacation, etc.
I took about 7 days in 2010 spread out over the year. During this time, I had about 3 locums fill in for me. Now AC sends me a message saying that I have to pay for each of those providers even though one of them was only there for one day, months ago.
The only alternative that I can see is to use a paper chart when I have a fill in provider and then scan the note into AC.
Has anyone else encountered this problem?

Have not encountered that problem but paper sounds like the solution. When I take my long weekends, I remain available by phone and can do whatever needs to be done other than "see" the patient by using remote access. If the problem is urgent or emergent, the patient can access urgent care or emergency care elsewhere. Being solo rural primary care, I rarely take more than two business days in a row off. I did my traveling when I was younger.

I think you should call AC and discuss with them.

I would agree with Steven. AC is not out to gouge you. It is very easy to see that they were very temporary.

I am in a similar situation. I don't think if you discuss it with them they will charge you for each of them. To me, it would seem fair to have you (or me) pay for one Locum slot and not for each individual. The only problem is with eRx where AC has to pay for each licensed provider so you might just need to have your staff print the requests and call them in manually (or you could do it from your beach chair with LogMein). Let us know how it goes because you are not the only one in this situation and there should be some consistency.

The other thing is that after each locum leaves you should inactivate them as a user (can reactivate once they come back) - that will make it back to only you as 1 licensed provider - do you keep yourself active and check in during your vacation ? The only thing about inactivating yourself is that at least temporarily it removes your appointments - you could always choose different level for you while gone.

Adding to Steven:

You can also transfer a provider slot for appts to another within a specific time frame, just remember to activate the other provider when doing so.

I have been gone for as long as two weeks with no locums, but another solo doctor covering calls. I had not really considered using a locums before - but interested. Does it pay off financially? A locums would cost a lot, but I also do pay my staff when I'm gone, for at least part of the time. This brings up another question, do you pay your staff when you are gone to do nothing, give them paid vacation, or have them take unpaid time off?